N546RV
Well Known Member
The struggle to nail down my electrical system continues; let's talk about how I want to do my landing and taxi lights.
The light units will be Flyleds combo units, one in each leading edge. For those unfamiliar, each unit has four projectors, one of which can be separately switched and aimed to act as a taxi light. Since I'm building a TW aircraft, I intend to use that functionality. I also want to have wigwag functionality for these lights, and I intend to use the Flyleds wigwag module to do this. What I want is to have two switches: one three-way switch with OFF/TAXI/BOTH positions, and one two-way switch to enable wig-wag.
The first source of interest here is that the wigwag module only has single power outputs, one for the right wing and one for the left. I want the wig-wag function to power both the landing and taxi units, which means at that point the landing and taxi circuits must be tied together - which means I lose the ability to apply power only to one of those circuits when I want the TAXI/BOTH switch on.
The second is sort of the other side of that coin; if I want to have a single switch for OFF/TAXI/BOTH, then the power outputs there for landing and taxi are electrically tied together, which prevents the wigwag module from being able to only apply power to one wing.
Basically, the issue is that every circuit can backfeed every other one.
Now, I'm a bit naive when it comes to electronics, but offhand this seems like a problem that can be solved with diodes - strategically placed diodes prevent any leg of the circuit from backfeeding any other one. The only practical problem I see is that I'll incur a voltage drop at all times to these circuits. But some annoying part of my brain wants to think that this isn't the way this should be done.
So what I'm asking is: is this a reasonable approach, or not?
Example schematic:
The light units will be Flyleds combo units, one in each leading edge. For those unfamiliar, each unit has four projectors, one of which can be separately switched and aimed to act as a taxi light. Since I'm building a TW aircraft, I intend to use that functionality. I also want to have wigwag functionality for these lights, and I intend to use the Flyleds wigwag module to do this. What I want is to have two switches: one three-way switch with OFF/TAXI/BOTH positions, and one two-way switch to enable wig-wag.
The first source of interest here is that the wigwag module only has single power outputs, one for the right wing and one for the left. I want the wig-wag function to power both the landing and taxi units, which means at that point the landing and taxi circuits must be tied together - which means I lose the ability to apply power only to one of those circuits when I want the TAXI/BOTH switch on.
The second is sort of the other side of that coin; if I want to have a single switch for OFF/TAXI/BOTH, then the power outputs there for landing and taxi are electrically tied together, which prevents the wigwag module from being able to only apply power to one wing.
Basically, the issue is that every circuit can backfeed every other one.
Now, I'm a bit naive when it comes to electronics, but offhand this seems like a problem that can be solved with diodes - strategically placed diodes prevent any leg of the circuit from backfeeding any other one. The only practical problem I see is that I'll incur a voltage drop at all times to these circuits. But some annoying part of my brain wants to think that this isn't the way this should be done.
So what I'm asking is: is this a reasonable approach, or not?
Example schematic: